Hacking How unbrick Wii Mini?

[Phantom-Ant]

I have a mini wii, I want to hack it, but I only have controllers with wii motion plus.
I wouldn't want it to be bricked ...
But I have a bad feeling, in the case, how unbrick it?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have a mini wii, I want to hack it, but I only have controllers with wii motion plus.
I wouldn't want it to be bricked ...
But I have a bad feeling, in the case, how unbrick it?

With a NAND backup and a hardware flasher.
Not much chance of that happening though. There are only a few ways to brick a Wii that you might run into, either by incorrectly messing with system menu or system menu IOS. The latter is something you would only do if you wanted to load installed WADs from the SD card menu, but a much better way of loading games from SD is with an emuNAND through a USB loader. And the former is something you would have to do to install Priiloader, which protects you against the third type of brick: A banner brick, caused by installing a WAD with a bad banner. I've never encountered a WAD with a bad banner as people seem to have figured out how to do them correctly a long time ago, but it could happen. It also provides some patches like region free and allowing normally non-copyable saves to be copied. But you could do the latter with Savegame Manager GX so that's not strictly necessary.
Installing Priiloader should be pretty safe but make sure you set it to autoboot system menu, as if you sync your only Wiimote to another Wii or device or it somehow gets desynced (shouldn't happen though) you can't navigate the Priiloader menu to select system menu, as the Wii Mini for some reason has no reset button. Syncing Wiimotes doesn't work in the Priiloader menu apparently. But the reset pins are still on the board so you could open up the Wii Mini and bridge them which should act as an "enter" press in Priiloader. No point in doing that if it can be avoided though.
Someone came up with another method that doesn't require opening the Wii Mini that makes use of a bluetooth adapter on a PC to spoof the Wii's MAC address and syncing the Wiimote to it. That way it will think it's synced when you next try to connect it to the Wii. Rather of a hassle though since it requires Linux to run.

 

[Phantom-Ant]

I want to install with bluetooth, but is it possible that brick during installation? And if so prevent? (Or if is too late unbrick?)

 

[Vorde]

I want to install with bluetooth, but is it possible that brick during installation? And if so prevent? (Or if is too late unbrick?)

The chances of bricking it are extremely low, but this is the risk to getting into modding of game consoles.
I started as a child and didn't even think about bricking things, I've modded numerous systems and I've only managed to brick 2 and I got both up an running. With that being said, I now own a way to hardware flash things, so if something does get bricked I have a way to restore back with a NAND backup.
I'm not familiar with the Wii Mini but I've modded 20 or 30 Wii's (used them to run game tournaments) and it's a very simple process. If you're nervous just double check things before confirming them.

 

[Convey12]

Yeah I doubt you will brick unless you like install a wrong theme or wad. Now that I think of it, does BootMii support Wii Mini?

 

[XFlak]

Yeah I doubt you will brick unless you like install a wrong theme or wad. Now that I think of it, does BootMii support Wii Mini?

No SD card slot, remember?

 

[Convey12]

Ah yes, thats right lol. Thanks

 

[namek247]

so there is no way to unbrick a wii mini?
i´ve managed to install the homebrew channel by linux machine but then i installed several wads and now the wii turns on but has a black screen.
i managed to install priiloader (if it helps)?

can anyone help?

 

[XFlak]

From priiloader, launch the homebrew channel, from there launch your wad manager and uninstall the channels that caused the issue (careful not to uninstall wads like the system menu or system menu IOS or u will make the problem worse).

 

[namek247]

Ok but, how do i enter priiloader on a Wii mini?

 

[eyeliner]

Ok but, how do i enter priiloader on a Wii mini?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/bricked-wii-mini.560296/

 

[namek247]

Ok but unfortunatly i installed a different priiloader version.
So is there absolutly no other way to unbrick the Wii mini?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Ok but unfortunatly i installed a different priiloader version.
So is there absolutly no other way to unbrick the Wii mini?

Add a reset button.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/things-you-have-fixed-modded-recently.366250/page-9#post-9159545

Don't sync your Wii remote(s) to another Wii or Wii U console. If no remote synced to your Wii Mini remains, using the older Priiloader on Wii Mini becomes A LOT harder.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[namek247]

I've added the reset switch but no priiloader menu. The screen remains black. Is the a diferent step i'm not taking?

 

[Ghostrider]

so there is no way to unbrick a wii mini?
i´ve managed to install the homebrew channel by linux machine but then i installed several wads and now the wii turns on but has a black screen.
i managed to install priiloader (if it helps)?

can anyone help?

foer what i know bc i have a wii mini you bricked bc wii mini can t install wad files

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I have a mini wii, I want to hack it, but I only have controllers with wii motion plus.
I wouldn't want it to be bricked ...
But I have a bad feeling, in the case, how unbrick it?

i did it with a wii remote + controller and it went very well

 

[Nattsudd78]

I've added the reset switch but no priiloader menu. The screen remains black. Is the a diferent step i'm not taking?

I am in the exact same situation. Hacked the Wii mini, got it running Homebrew, but had issues with games not running properly, installed wad package and it bricked. Installed a reset button as discribed here . But still nothing but black screen.
Has anyone been successful in unbricking a wii mini in this situation?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

I am in the exact same situation. Hacked the Wii mini, got it running Homebrew, but had issues with games not running properly, installed wad package and it bricked. Installed a reset button as discribed here . But still nothing but black screen.
Has anyone been successful in unbricking a wii mini in this situation?

Are you sure:

• You have installed Priiloader?
  
• It's the old Priiloader requiring holding (Reset) on power on – instead of also supporting holding (Esc) on USB keyboard?
• You have connected the (Reset) button correctly? → Please provide photos.
  
• You didn't reinstall the System Menu with the WAD package? → This would overwrite Priiloader and a System Menu for non-Mini version of the Wii will surely brick as it searches for WiFi chip and black screens if not found?

If you have a NAND image, or at least dumped the keys, you Wii Mini might be salvageable with a hardware programmer (requires very advanced soldering skills). Only worth the effort if you have sentimental reasons to stick with the particular console and/or want to extract save data.